A Plymouth County grand jury Wednesday morning failed to indict Kevin Treseler, the Stonehill College student charged last month with raping a child he was tutoring in a classroom in a city school.

The grand jury’s decision means the charges against Treseler will not be prosecuted in court, said Bridget Norton Middleton, a spokeswoman for Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz.

Vicki-Ann Downing

The medical workers who examined the 8-year-old Brockton girl at the hospital knew she had been a victim of sexual abuse.

The warts on her bottom were all the evidence they needed.

But a grand jury on Wednesday did not find enough evidence to indict Kevin Treseler of Millis, the 21-year-old Stonehill College student who – according to what the girl told police – had put his hands down her pants while he was working as a tutor in a classroom at the Angelo elementary school.

When the grand jury declined to indict Treseler on Wednesday, prosecutors moved immediately to dismiss all charges against him.

So what happens now?

“We will make sure this young victim has access to the services she needs,” said Bridget Norton Middleton, a spokeswoman for Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz. “But without further information, the investigation is closed.”

The case is an example of the difficulty of prosecuting cases of child sexual abuse, advocates agreed.

“We know there are many cases that do not get prosecuted because there is not enough evidence,” said Erin Banner, director of A New Day, an agency for sexual assault victims based in Brockton. “A lot of evidence in sexual assault cases is one person’s word against another.”

Some cases have so little evidence they never make it to police at all, Banner said. Some fail at the grand jury stage. But there have been successes, too, “and people have been found guilty,” Banner said.

“Jurors are our peers,” Banner said. “They are individuals. Because of how our society is, they often don’t know the intricacies of sexual violence. They expect there to be fighting back and violence. With children, there is manipulation.”

The Brockton tutor case was a difficult one, said Jetta Bernier, executive director of the Massachusetts Citizens for Children, a children’s advocacy organization that runs the “Enough Abuse” campaign to prevent child sexual abuse, www.enoughabuse.org.

Given the medical evidence, it’s clear the Brockton child was abused, but not necessarily clear by whom, Bernier said.

“Children very rarely lie about sexual abuse,” said Bernier. “On the other hand, you can imagine a scenario of a child who has in fact been raped, but not by this person.”

Abusers use many tactics to keep the children from telling, because continued access to the child is vital to them, Bernier said.

If the abuser is someone “the child knows and loves and trusts,” the child might not want to tell, she said. Others threaten harm to the children’s loved ones or pets, or threaten the child with removal from the home, she said.

“People who abuse children have a very delicate line to walk to make sure their abuse is not exposed, because if it is, the game is over for them,” Bernier said.

Abusing a child in a classroom setting, with other children and possibly another teacher present, “you would have to take a great risk,” said Bernier. “You are causing pain to a child. You don’t know how the child is going to react – you don’t know if the child is going to scream out.”

It’s possible that “the poor tutor was just minding his own business and was a real handy scapegoat, but we don’t know,” Bernier said.

Banner urged the victim’s family to use A New Day’s services. The organization has a sexual assault therapist who works with children.

“We would hope the family would reach out,” Banner said. “All sexual assault victims should have a voice about their own trauma.”

Multiple attempts were made on Wednesday by phone and in person seeking comment from Treseler. A person matching his description answered the door at his home in Millis, but the man closed it when he saw a reporter.

Vicki-Ann Downing may be reached at vdowning@enterprisenews.com. GateHouse News Service reporter Julie Balise contributed to this story.

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